Ape Escape
Ape Escape (known as Saru! Get You!/サルゲッチュ/''Saru Getchu'' in Japan) is a platform game published, produced, and developed by Sony for the Playstation, released in 1999. The story begins with an Albino ape named Specter who gains enhanced intelligence with an experimental helmet. After this he makes a million more and uses them for an army of apes that he uses to wreak havoc throughout History. Ape Escape was met with universal acclaim from professional critics, who praised the use of the dual analog controls and spoke positively of the graphics and music, with minor criticism going to the voice acting. Story The story begins with a Monkey named Specter, who finds a Peak Point Helmet. Because of this experimental helmet his intelligence suddenly increases but also gives him an evil intent. For less intelligent Apes he mass produces more helmets and makes an army of them for World Domination! Its up to Spike and the Professor to stop these evil monkey's by chasing them through time and capturing them. From the Dinosaur Ages to the future Spike must catch the legions of Apes if he wishes to save the world from the evil monkey. Gameplay Spike can run, jump, climb, and swing objects. Throughout the adventure, he gains gadgets and such in order to help his monkey catching mission. The controls main focus are the two analog sticks, as the Dual Analog Controller is mandatory to play the game. When Entering a stage, Casi will display the number of apes that should be captured in order to complete the stage. However, more may be available in the stage than asked for. It means that you will need to return into the stage another time to finish it entirely. The bottom-right corner of the screen displays a group of icons indicating how many apes have been captured (a net icon) and how many must still be captured (an ape head icon). Spike's Health is shown by cookies, which he can gain from a cookie jar or enemies. His life icon is symbolized by his Shirt. They can be gathered randomly or after getting 100 gold chips. Gadget List As the game goes on, Gadget's are earned in order to capture more Ape's, not being able to get by normal measures. A training must be completed first in order to gain said gadget. Below is a list of all the items one can recieve. *Stun Club: Already recieved at the start of the game. A primary item for ape catchers! *Time Net: Another primary object already recieved. Built specially to get apes. No ordinary net will do! *Water Net: As soon as the character reaches water they can use this to Augment swimming and can deplay a net to capture apes under water. *Monkey Radar: Used to locate hidden or nearby apes one may not see. Using L will switch the camera view to see said Monkey. *Slingback Shooter: For hitting switches or apes from a distance. Use R to change the ammo. *Super hoop: A hula hoop that will provide Spike with Super speed! *Sky Flyer: A hand held propeller used to reach new heights! *R.C. Car Used to access small spaces/places Spike cant fit through. *Magic Punch: A giant boxing glove that is like a stronger variant to Stun Club. It can break open many things. Minigames Enemies For more info please see: Enemies (AE1) Stages In each level there are usually 1-3 Specter Coins used to unlock Minigames. Each level is connected through the Hub world called the Time Station. There is a total of 204 Apes (AE1) to catch through the game. Characters *Spike: A 10 year old boy who goes with his friend Jake to visit the Professor's new time machine. As they arrived they get sucked into it in order to catch monkey's while traveling through many era's along the way. *Specter: The main Antagonist of the game and overal series. A circus performer monkey who came across the Peek Point helmet. It increased his intelligence and gave him the power of speech. Because of this, however, he has gained an evil mind in the process and wishes to take over the world. *The Professor: An inventor who creates the Time Station, Peak point helmet and many other devices. Due to his age and sense of mind he is somewhat childish and careless. His granddaughter is Natalie. *Natalie: Friend to Spike and Jake, granddaughter of the Professors. She usually handles computer work to make sure nothing breaks. Very rarely will she get into the action as well. *Jake: Spike's friend who enjoys a friendly rivalry with him. As they were split up he became mind-controlled by Specter. *The apes: Specter's army that Spike most catch and send back to the lab. They all have colored pants and helmets to increase their intelligence. The helmets they wear describe their mood, while their pants describe their nature. *Casi: A computer program brought to life in order to assist people around her. She usually tells Spike how many apes and specter coins he still needs to collect in a level. Development The first game requiring the use of the Dual Analog Controller. The music of the game was composed by Sōichi Terada. The game's sound effects were created by Masaaki Kaneko, while the sound effects in the game cinematics were provided by Masatoshi Mizumachi. The voice acting of the American version of the game was recorded at Dubey Tunes Studios with Sara Holihan serving as the voiceover director and Hunter A. Pipes III serving as the voiceover producer. The game is compatible with the Pocketstation Application and during Sony Computer's entertainment America winter holiday market compaign in 1999 they showed on-air promotions for it on Cartoon Network. VA *Scott MacGregor as Spike *Peter Bayhem as Jake *Michael Sousa as the Professor *Pete Burrows as Specter *Christiane Crawford as Natalie *Peggy Small as Casi *Susan Michele as additional characters. Reception Many people had positive reviews towards the game. Even leading to some calling it the best 3D Platform game on the Playstation. Bringing with it many unique game mechanics and art styling. Also noted was its originality and fun held within it. Many magazines also supported the game, "Electronic Gaming Monthly" in their January 2004 issues claimed it was "The amazing 3D action game that made capturing monkeys popular again." The game's graphics were met with mostly good comments. But some were indifferent, saying most textures weren't terribly stunning and extremely crude and simple. The character designs were fundamental, and the entire game had a cartoony styling in comparison to the soon arriving Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast. However, said person also noted that the special effect when capturing an ape was "Awesome" and the Mixture of transparent lights in the forms of rings and sparks and quickly moving camera created very satisfying effects. Scott Alan Marriott of Allgame noted the "distinct Japanese style" of the graphics and added that the environments were "fun", but suffered from some pop-up and other minor glitches. Reception of the game's audio was mainly positive, with some if not all criticism going to the voice acting. Some disliked the mixture of J-Pop and techno-style synth that was more Japenese than Western. A lot of people disliked Spike and Jake's voices, but loved the apes' screeches and such. The VA work left a lot to be desired, but no complaints towards others had been stated as of this time. Pete Bartholow of GameSpot referred to the "playful techno" soundtrack as "stage-appropriate" and noted its "mildly interactive" nature in that some of the music's instruments are muted when the player character moves stealthily. The staff of IGN included Ape Escape in an article documenting the "greatest PlayStation 3D platformers ever". The staff of IGN also included it as #8 in their "Top 25 PlayStation Games of All Time". In the final issue of Official UK PlayStation Magazine, the game was chosen as the 9th best game of all time. The IGN PlayStation Team included the game as #8 in their "Top 10 Classics that Belong on the PSN". PSP version After 6 years since the initial release, a PlayStation Portable remake, Ape Escape: On the Loose, was published. The game shows some differences with the original version. Trivia *Out of all the Ape escape games it was released the most, being for: **"Best for family" and "Sony greatest hits" in 2000 **Platinum Range in 2001 **The PSone Books in 2005 **and finally in 2007 for the PlayStation Network as a downloadable game. *Its the only Ape Escape game to be re-tooled/upgraded for another system (PSP) *''Ape Escape'' is notable as the first video game to require the use of the Dual Analog Controller for gameplay. :: *In an old issue of Disney adventure comic/magazine they had a single comic consisting of 3-4 pages inside of it for this game. It showed Specter and Spike with the male capturing a few of the ape's. *The only still open Ape escape 1 website is based on the the non American version of the game. You can tell by Natalie and Jake's names being Katie and Buzz. Also note the character you control on the website was added by them and was not a original Spike pixel as its very crudely done. *By entering "R2, Down, L2, Up, Right, Down, Right, Left." You can get 99 explosive bullets for your slingshot. *Entering "R2, Up, L2, Down, Left, Up, Left, Right, R2, L2" you can be given 99 lives. Gallery Ape Escape